(c) Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ: Concerning the Meanings of Reasoned Opinion and Transmitted Reports, with a Concise Explanation of All of Them — by Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, may Allah have mercy on him.
(d) A Dispensation to Rise for the People of Virtue and Distinction among the Muslims as an Act of Benevolence, Veneration and Respect, not as a Display of Ostentation or Exaggerated Glorification — by al-Nawawī, may Allah have mercy on him.
This practice spread to the wording of chapter headings as well.
One example appears in Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Khuzaymah. He cites the ḥadith: “Its water is purifying and its dead creatures are lawful,” and gives it the heading:
“Chapter: The concession allowing bathing and ablution with sea water, for its water is pure and its dead creatures are lawful, in opposition to those who disliked performing ablution and bathing with sea water and alleged that beneath the sea is a fire and beneath the fire a sea—until they counted seven seas and [and] seven fires—and therefore declared ablution and bathing with it disliked, as they claimed.”
Consider, for instance, the headings he assigns to chapters 10, 20, 218 and 223 of the Book of Ablution in his Ṣaḥīḥ.
- His severity in refuting those who disagreed with him, and the length to which he would go in doing so.
This is a conspicuous feature of the Shaykh’s writings, and I do not censure it when it is directed at the people of innovation, for they are indeed innovators. Moreover, they have gone to extremes in criticising and vilifying the Shaykh, even to the point of lying, falsifying evidence and resorting to deception in what they have written. Allah will call them to account.
Among the passages I have come across in which he speaks about his sternness toward the people of whims and innovation, and the reason for it, is what he states in the introduction to the first volume of Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ḍaʿīfah (p. 34, new edition):
“Kindly excuse me, dear readers, if I prolong this introduction, for my aim is to acquaint you with the state of some of those who unjustly attack me, through the pen of other fair-minded and impartial writers, so that you will not be quick to take exception to whatever severity you may occasionally find in my replies to certain critics who speak out of desire and without knowledge. Long ago it was said:
‘The wall said to the peg, “Why do you split me?”
He replied, “Ask the one who drives me in.”’
I hope they will not oblige me to cite the poet who said:”